During the last 10 years, the western left made a startling discovery. It realised that the humanitarian narrative it had painstakingly built up in the face of 20th-century conservative isolationism was appropriated by a new breed of conservative who then put it into the service of nation building and expansionism. In response, the left reacted in two ways.

The first was to join with the neoconservatives and declare them the "true" guardians of humanitarianism. This group includes all those on the left who said that they disliked George Bush but detested the Saddams, Ahmedinejads, and Mubaraks of the world even more. They supported the use of American "muscle" to effectuate the "liberation" they had always dreamed of the left bringing.

The liabilities of this first camp - liabilities of commission - are well documented and will not be given a kind eye by history.

The second reaction by the left went in the opposite direction. It tried to show all the ways in which the humanitarian discourse was "hijacked" or abused or simply taken for a ride.

The latest article by Cif writer Soumaya Ghannoushi comes from this camp. It identifies how the idea of liberating Muslim women has been put to use to give justification for all sorts of western excess.

However, the sad truth is that this second camp is liable as well; it suffers from the liability of omission.

To be blunt: this branch of the left has absolutely no narrative, no stance, no position, vis a vis the plight of Muslim underdogs. It sticks to bland, weightless statements, like the one found in Ghannoushi's previous piece about Muslim women: "The burden of liberation rests on the shoulders of the Muslim woman herself."

When it comes to women, minorities, homosexuals, atheists, dissenters and artists in Muslim majority countries, this "see no evil" branch of the left doesn't know what to advise, what to recommend, how to help. It adopts the only position that comes to its mind: "Everyone! Hands off!" It puts the burden for liberation on the suffering.

Such apprehensiveness is galvanised by a single motivating fear: at all costs not to become appropriated. It is so scarred by how the neoconservatives appropriated its human rights discourse five years ago that it will do whatever it takes - even remain utterly silent - to prevent that happening again. It remains rooted in its place because it does not want to "enable" the bad guys.

What it does not realise, though, is that silence is the worst of the enablers.

Thus, while I certainly find Ghannoushi's article interesting from a post-colonial perspective (I was not aware how the western gaze towards Muslim women has changed) I don't find it weighty, worthwhile, or of much benefit to any underdog in the Muslim majority world looking at life with what Salman Rushdie calls "the view from underneath."

All this is not to say that I would like to handcuff Ghannoushi to Islamic reform (especially as she so clearly prefers dismantling the Hitchens and Bruckners of the world). I simply think that there are more interesting debates the left should be having.

One of those debates would be about the state of Muslim women and what the western left needs to be doing. In that debate we will ask hard questions of ourselves.

Some of those questions will be as follows:

(i) What can be done about stoning in Muslim countries? Is the solution to seek better enforcement of international treaties, or to ally with liberal Muslim leaders to bring about a theological truce?

(ii) Is honour killing a crime of passion or a crime of religion?

(iii) How should our feminist agencies be presenting their arguments: cloaked in liberal theories of Islam, or in secular language?

(iv) What is the principal insecurity afflicting Muslim males that they otherise women as they do? Is it really the existential threat that is the west, or does it have more to do with an institutionalised demonisation of women that is a thousand years old?

(v) What moral or ethical obligation does the western left bear in light of the fact that "religious vigilantes" (that would be, religious vigilantes who are Muslim) in Southern Iraq are behaving like animals towards women?

(vi) Can we pull off having this debate all without giving into crude versions of racism and supremacism?

I'm afraid that Ghannoushi's article advances none of those debates. Now, that is not to say that hers wasn't an interesting piece; just that on the hard question of how to assure the dignity of Muslim women, it wasn't terribly useful. After all, Hitchens and most members of the pro-war left, who are the real targets of her piece, have already been exposed.

If anything, Ghannoushi's article demonstrates that a discussion about Muslim women is interesting only when it can be used as a stick to beat up the bad leftists (Maggie O'Kane's recent article is another example of this).

It is time for us on the western left to give up our ideological myopia and prioritise. This is what the various underdogs in the world wants from us. I remember a few months ago I was on a group email with a few very liberal friends from Pakistan. An article was sent out on the list, and after reading it I quickly chimed in saying that some of the analysis sounded like right-wing talking points. The Pakistani reply seemed to care very little, if at all, about my ideological concerns, throwing their support behind the analysis about rising Pakistani extremism. It was sobering to be made to realise that when people are confronted with violence, they take help from whomever is most ready to give it to them.

The task of the western left, therefore, has to be to become capable of providing that assistance, and to do it without martial hubris and economic exploitation. That project has no time for what the old dead white men, whom Ghannoushi cites, used to think. They are irrelevant.